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BP and Castrol partner Renault Sport F1

26 January 2017

The Renault Sport Formula 1 team has announced that BP and Castrol have entered a five year technical partnership with the team starting in 2017.

“The return of BP and Castrol, brands with such strong heritage in motorsport, is very good news and opens new opportunities for our Formula 1 team,” said Jérôme Stoll, president of Renault Sport Racing.”

BP and Castrol have shared a budding technical partnership with Audi Sport in both DTM and Le Mans. However with Audi pulling the plug on its WEC programme, it opened a vacancy for top flight motorsport research and development for the fuel and lubricant giant.

“Developing leading fuel and lubricant technologies is a key priority for BP,” said BP Downstream chief executive Tufan Erginbilgic. “This partnership creates exciting opportunities for the teams in Renault and BP to work together to further our cutting edge fuel and lubricant technologies in the highly competitive world of Formula 1.”

The partnership comes as the role of fuels and lubricants in the V6 hybrid era has become of paramount importance. It is something that Petronas has been able to capitalise on from both a branding and technical perspective. The company’s partnership with Mercedes began pre-hybrid era, however the relevance of its partnership really came to the fore in 2014.

“Fuels and lubricants will make an even greater difference to the overall performance of the car than they have since the new power unit regulations have been introduced in 2014” said Cyril Abiteboul, managing director of Renault Sport Racing. “The teams at BP and Castrol are very excited by the challenges offered by Formula One and we are confident they will help us achieve our ambitions for our new car in 2017 and beyond.”